


Too many hands to untie

by evarosen



Series: losing you (it's just no good) [1]
Category: Terminator Genisys (2015)
Genre: M/M, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4965757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evarosen/pseuds/evarosen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kyle was a child, John used to help him with his uniform. Then he never really lost the habit.</p><p>(or, you did see John's completely unnecessary assistance with Kyle's vest, right?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too many hands to untie

When Kyle was a child, John used to help him with his uniform. Then he never really lost the habit.

It's not that he dressed or undressed him like a valet; or anything weird like that.

It started with John inspecting the wraps of Kyle's vest, and finding them not secured to his liking. John had wordlessly undone them and fixed them back properly; and then he'd done it again, before every mission.

After a while, he'd reached out one night, while they were sitting together by the fire, and fixed the collar of Kyle's jacket to better withstand the freezing wind. Kyle, who'd been in the process of drinking what was at best a distant, watered down version of coffee (or so John said, but at least it was warm), had jerked a bit, surprised, and turned to look at him.

"My mother used to do that for me" John had said, nodding at the general vecinity of Kyle's neck. "Does it bother you?"

"I'm not a child," Kyle had said quietly. Maybe before he would have still qualified as one, or so he'd hear; but he'd been fighting alongside John for years now, and he thought he deserved better than to be mothered by him.

"I'm not saying you are. I just..." John tilted his head, considering. "My mother wasn't very good at being affectionate. When I was little. She was...It was for the best, of course; she was setting to make me tough. Which she did," he chuckled. "And then, when I was older, and she was better, I was difficult to..." He shook his head. "But she sometimes would arrange my collar, or zip up my jacket, and I would know she meant she cared about me, by that. Even if I was fussy about it, and would no longer take a hug."

"I would..." Kyle said, and then stopped, because he'd been about to say _I would take a hug_ and _that_ would not help his argument about not wanting John to treat him as a child. Instead, he reached and pulled at John's collar. Only a bit, because John's clothes were always perfectly arranged. "It doesn't bother me."

John smiled at him, his expression a little--wistful, Kyle could call it, even. Maybe he was thinking of his mother; but the smile was for him, Kyle wanted to think.

He kicked at John's foot, teasingly, and John bumped his shoulder against his, and they continued watching the fire and sipping on their almost-coffee.

And just like that he'd allowed John a free pass at his clothes.

Not all of them; just a touch here and there, John's way to imply he cared about him. It was perfectly innocent; John's mother used to do it for him, for God's sake.

Kyle stopped his side of the exchange a few years from that night, though. Surely it looked a bit funny, a soldier pawing their commander officer in front of everyone; and since Kyle could no longer be sure he would be able to stop at the light, passing way in which John delivered the gesture, he decided to stop altogether.

He was beggining to have the terrifying certainty that if he was allowed to touch John, he wouldn't stop unless told.

*

In the work camp, Kyle had been put to haul bodies. He hadn't know John, yet; but his subconscious wasn't concerned with that, when it saw fit to start plunging his dreams with the image of finding John among the load, his clear blue eyes wide open and sightless.

"Kyle," the corpse called at him, and Kyle screamed, and screamed...

"Kyle!" John called, pressing the palm of his hand against Kyle's mouth.

Kyle startled, awake, and John, alive and well, was leaning over him, his other hand over Kyle's shoulder, pressing him down.

The state of John's hair was what finally convinced him he was not dreaming now.

"Sorry," he tried to say, but John's hand was still on his mouth. John made a face and removed it. "Sorry," he repeated, "were you sleeping?"

John shook his head, though it was clear he'd been; aside from his hair sticking every which way, he was in his undershirt. John usually slept on his full uniform, so if he'd actually gone to the trouble and undressed, he'd probably been hoping to catch a full night's sleep. Shit.

"You were calling my name," John said, eyeing him seriously, and Kyle had another moment of panic until he remembered he'd been having a nightmare.

It was a sad state of affairs that he would, indeed, prefer John knew he'd dreamed of him being dead instead of...whatever else he could be dreaming of while calling John's name, but he was reasonably certain John himself would too prefer it this way.

"I was dreaming of the work camp."

"Oh," John said. He was still leaning over Kyle, and he moved the hand that had been covering his mouth, and touched his hair lightly instead. Kyle looked at him, his breath catching slightly; but John moved away almost instantly, and stood next to his bed.

"When I was--" Kyle was sure he'd been about to say 'little', but he corrected himself "young, my mother would sleep in the same room as me. To...keep guard, kinda. Only she wouldn't actually sleep, because she _did_ keep guard over me back then. I'm not helping at all, am I?"

"You still look half-asleep, to be fair," Kyle said charitably, because he knew John didn't talk about his mother with anyone else, and he wasn't about to make him feel unwelcome.

"Yes, well..."

"Actually, sleeping with someone would probably help. I don't mean..." he added, awkwardly; but John was just blinking at him, so of course any other meaning of 'sleeping' hadn't even crossed his mind. "It helped, that you were here when I woke up."

John was eyeing him again, but not in a way that suggested he'd read something weird on Kyle's words; it was the same assesing look he'd given when he'd asked Kyle if he minded the thing with the clothes.

"It's not as if the other room is any less crowded," John said at last. 

Kyle knew John had his own private room in this base, but he didn't say anything; instead he made room for him under the covers, and when John settled against him, wrapped his fingers around John's wrist, just over the pulse point.

John didn't protest, and Kyle thought he'd probably get away with pressing his ear agains John's heart too, if he told him what he'd dreamed of, but didn't want to press his luck.

"Nothing is going to happen to me," John said after a while. "We'll see the end of this war, that I can promise you, Kyle."

And even if everything else John said hadn't been proven true so far, Kyle would believe him; would believe anything John said, like this, with John's other hand reaching down to tangle their fingers together.

*

Kyle stared at John, in the hospital room; remembered his fingers skimming his sides as he took off his kevlar vest, and didn't doubt.

_would know she meant she cared about me, by that_

He didn't say 'I would take a hug' right then; he just rushed toward John, and wrapped his arms around his neck, and John pulled him tightly against his body.

As they parted, John's fingers brushed lightly against the collar of his scrubs, and it was that gesture, more than anything, that convinced Kyle some part of John still survived.

As he argued with Sarah and Pops, in the car, he thought about John's fingers wrapped with his, so many times, and made the silent determination of not letting go.


End file.
